An article by UniLaSalle lecturer Olivier Pourret has been published in European Science Editing, the journal of the European Association of Science Editors.
In his latest article in European Science Editing, the journal of the European Association of Scientific Editors, Olivier Pourret, a geochemistry lecturer at the AGHYLE unit and UniLaSalle's “Scientific Integrity” referent, points the finger at the shortcomings of “tortured sentences” generated by paraphrasing software. These are sometimes used inappropriately to prevent the detection of plagiarism.
In their quest to circumvent the original wording, some authors unwittingly create incoherent sentences that detract from scientific clarity. The concept of “heavy metals”, awkwardly reformulated as “overwhelming metals”, is a case in point. Over and above the difficulties of understanding that these expressions engender, they can point to more serious problems in the scientific approach, undermining the integrity of certain work.
The article also highlights the initiative of Guillaume Cabanac, a teacher-researcher in computer science at the Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), who has created a tool to identify and correct these anomalies in certain scientific publications.
